


You're battin' zero

by livinginadaydream (orphan_account)



Category: Disney RPF, Jonas Brothers
Genre: 1930s AU, Angst, Burlesque AU, F/M, Gypsy AU, Incest, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-25
Updated: 2010-08-25
Packaged: 2017-10-12 17:58:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/127528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/livinginadaydream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Joe's nineteen, he catches a break. With his father. After the most important person in his life has left him to be the only star left shining.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You're battin' zero

Mama left dad, took Kevin with her. That's when papa started producing. Wrote a musical starring his boys. Starring Nick.

Joe's one half of the cow, Caroline.

The show is awful, but Nick and Joe look up to their father and want him to be happy. They take every direction he gives them. They dance and Nick sings, and his voice is almost good enough to make the show work. The director they audition for the first time thinks so too. It gets picked up and pretty soon they're putting on a show all over the United States.

When they travel down south for the fourth or fifth time, people aren't as amused by their take on the south. It's seen as mocking (a boy in love with his cow?) and no one has time to mess with the silliness of it anyways.

The cast has gotten older, too, and papa refuses to acknowledge it. The girls in the background are mixed ages, but they're all mostly older than the star. They want out and want to move on. The only reason they did it in the first place was for the small check they were given each time they performed. Traveling isn't even fun anymore. Once on a train ride, one needn't experience it again. It's bumpy and constraining, agitating.

One night when they're about to move West, Nick and Joe ask to go to a movie, and since they've been so good, since Nick asked so nicely, and Joe takes good care of his brother, Papa says yes. Only they're standing outside the picture show, and Nick pulls Joe into a quick hug before saying he sees something across the street he needs to look at. He doesn't think twice about letting him go. He's been doing this since he was thirteen and he's such an adult; he deserves to have fun.

Joe waits patiently until the usher at the door announces that the next flick is ready, and Joe bites his bottom lip, bounces on his feet a bit and turns to look across the street, searching for Nick's curls. Nick isn't anywhere and Joe's heart clenches somewhat in his chest. Glancing down at his tickets, he clenches his jaw and starts running around the city, looking. When he gets to the motel, he's about to head up the stairs to their room (their things should be packed and at the train station by now) the young man at the front desk calls him over and hands him a note.

The second it's in his hands, he feels a little like crying, but he rushes to the train station and his father is tapping his foot. "What took you so long? Where's Nick?" he demands, and there goes Joe's last hope.

"Papa, I've been looking for him everywhere, but I can't find him and the man at the motel handed me this!" He gives the blue folded note to his father and watches closely, listens as well as he ever has, as Papa reads it. Nick loves them. Is grateful. Really appreciates the chances he was given and all he's learned doing the show, but he's tired and he can't do it anymore. He married Miley two weeks ago and they're leaving. Papa slumps down on a bench, he's stopped reading.

Unable to process it all, Joe's behind, so he pulls the note as much into his own grasp as he can and finishes it out. For a few minutes they sit there, and then Joe puts on a smile for his father because he loves his dad, even though Joe gets the rough clothes to wear, and hides behind a cow head on stage, even though he's been walked upon. Even though he's just  lost his best friend. He tries not to let his eyes water but they glisten. Papa doesn't care however, and pretty soon he's making plans on how to reinvent the entire play. They'll make Joe the lead, and they'll get boys for background dancers like Papa wanted the whole time because boys are hard workers.

Truthfully, Joe's hesitant to accept this plan of action, but his heart beats a little faster when he thinks about it all. Thinks about becoming number one for his father, finally. Finally he'll mean something.

As it turns out, Papa wants him to wear curlers beforehand so that he's got curls like his little brother. And the boys hired are pretty terrible at their job and extremely irritating. Joe swallows it down all the time, but he's sick to his stomach missing Nick. His heart aches with it but he pushes forward because he has to.

They get contacted to put on a show at this theater, but as the owner puts it, they're just there to keep the cops out. There's strippers. Women with long legs and scant clothing. They're pretty and Joe licks his lips as they pass by. He's not sure how it happens. Joe was only paying partial attention if that and suddenly there's something about a special feature, and Joe. Joe's going to _be_ that feature.

Apparently male dancers are something popular in France, and he does have toned muscles from all the rehearsal and sweating it out he's been doing since he was fifteen. He's young, and with his dark skin, he looks enchanting, mesmerizing like a gypsy. It's his chance to be a star, and Papa seems very excited about it behind his business facade. His hands are shaking slightly as he runs through the music of the show. (Music he wrote, he's going to shine.) Joe's stomach twists as his father keeps repeating, "You're a gentleman. Remember that, boy."

It's not until he's dressed in the finest clothes he's ever seen that Joe feels a surge of confidence settle beside his need to show his father that he _can_ do something right, as good as Nick.

Rushed to the stage, Joe hums a few notes in the back of his head, finding the keys before the music even starts. A hand grips his shoulder, straights the loose silk tie, and his father tells him, "Sing it out Joseph. Really sing it out." When he's introduced, it's under some stage name they never asked him about, but he embraces it. It's his name from then on.

Joe becomes famous that night. It starts off a little rocky, a little caught up, but then raw energy jolts through his body the second he realizes he's missing his shot. It's classy and a short, sweet burst of something new to taste, and they're drawing in people they maybe hadn't before with just female strippers. All he does is take off his tie, un-do a few buttons of his shirt while he's swaggering across the stage, singing strong.

It becomes this explosive act. Pretty soon he's known as the biggest burlesque stage-dancer in the U.S. And he's so proud of himself, and struggling that much harder against his father who's still convinced he holds the reigns. Joe's got a photographer coming one night, and his father is trying to arrange everything, but he doesn't _need_ to. There's a maid in his order now, and his father... it's done. It's over. His callous treatment is something his son can't take anymore, but Joe just keeps fixing up his hair in the mirror until his father says one last thing that's a step just too far over the line. "You wouldn't be anywhere without me! Where's _my_ call?"

Joe yells out as he stands up, legs pushing his chair back, "I don't need you anymore! I'm not a child anymore," he reasons. "I'll give you anything you want. Anything. How about a school dad? You're great with kids. I could give you a dramatics art school to teach at." Joe loves his dad. So much, but he's tired of being treated like a failure. Especially now that he's on top. If being on top isn't even good enough, Joe doesn't understand what the hell is, and he can't be around his father _anymore_.

"I am not someone to be pushed aside Joesph. I gave you all of this. I've been behind you this entire time! You're going to need me! You are."

As Joe feels the nail being hit on the head one final time, his maid lets the photographer in. Everything else is in front of everyone, and this may as well be too. So he finishes it off and watches his father storm out of his dressing room, and hopefully on to his own life.

"No. Dad. You're not going to be behind me anymore. If I fail, I fail on my own, and you won't have to see it or be disappointed. I'm not Nick, you know? I never will be. And I'm not sorry." Though the pang has always been there, of missing Nick of wanting him by his side. He thinks of Nick frequently, wondering if someday there won't be a decent way to track him down, but Joe's not sure he wants to disturb a picturesque family like he's sure Nick has by now. At least nineteen, married to Miley for three years. Surely they have children and are settled. Don't need to know the dramatic entrances and exits that have continued to be taken even after Nick was gone.

"You've got no talent." That's the last thing he hears from his father.

There's a show to be put on for the photographer, and he lets Joe know that the issue of the fashion magazine will be printed next week. He'll be on news stands everywhere.

"I'd heard about you... but I never saw - you looked so different, but I recognized you. Of course." Joe hears behind him, and one of the stage assistants is standing by the open door looking a little puzzled, eyebrows lifted, asking what Joe would have him do about this intruder. He stops moving almost completely and his eyes slide closed. His mirror must be at a weird angle, so he turns in his chair where he's fixing his stage makeup, preparing for the show in twenty to thirty minutes. There's his baby brother looking so grown up it hurts.

"Nick," Joe says fondly, heartbreak behind it, but they both look when the door clicks behind him. That was all the permission Nick needed to be in the room.

"I wasn't really sure how to get a hold of you before now, but then you were on _Harper's Bazaar_ , a damn magazine, Joseph. Suddenly all I have to do is ask someone on the street and I know where to come looking." Nick continues, cheeks pink and he looks flustered despite the soft chuckle he gives. His gaze switches between Joe, the floor where his feet are crossed over each other, and the hand now resting on the knob behind him, other hand a fist in his pocket. "How did you - You look really..." He looks up again, licks at his lower lip quickly, and finishes with, "Good."

A fedora sits on Joe's head, where his hair is brushed back straight, glossy and smooth for when he takes it off and spins it out into the crowd. He's got suspenders to flip off from his shoulders, pants that hold close to his body, and a dress shirt without an under-shirt beneath it. A tie to loosen at one point, to untie at another, and to slither out from under his collar nearer to the end. But it's a theatrical performance, with music and it's cultural now, and the men are allowed to look, and so are the women. And what he doesn't want seen, he hides behind the stage curtains as he gives his farewell.

"You left," is all Joe can find to say after all that. He can feel his eyes watering again like they did the day Nick disappeared on him, ran away with a girl Joe was fond of but hadn't held a candle to. Nick nods slowly, cheeks instantly losing their color at the mention of it, and Joe feels a small swell of satisfaction. His grip is tight on the back of his chair, his other hand across his stomach, squeezing at his side. He's keeping himself sitting because otherwise he might hug Nick and give him the absurd idea that all is forgiven. Well it's not. Joe knows it should be. He _knows_ he shouldn't care this much, but he does, and he did and he always would have.

"Dad was suffocating Joe," Nick explains simply, eyes hiding behind lashes. "I knew you wouldn't leave, because he treated you horribly, and you should've been the one to bring it up first. But you never did. You had too much to prove, Joe. And damn it, I couldn't _be_ there anymore. You can't tell me you don't understand that. You have to." And if not for a fight a week and a half ago, maybe Joe would have something to dispute.

"That doesn't change the fact you left _me too_ , Nicky." Joe's forcing himself to watch his brother's reactions, and maybe he's afraid to look away because of what happened the last time he did. It hurts, and his stomach feels lumped up inside him, heavy in his skin and pushing its way out, making him tender and sore, and he'd turn his head to blink away the miserable tears his eyes are holding if only he could.

Nick swallows harshly, like he's taking a giant horse pill down his throat, working it through, dry and scratching, and then he looks up, and his eyes are wet, wetter than Joe's. He's trying to hold back the tremble of his lip, but all Joe can see is this stupid little kid who actually thinks he could get in serious trouble with someone who loves him so much. Joe wants to tell him how much he's angry, how much he wants Nick to get out, or... something along those lines. But he can't and he won't. And the really terrible thing is, that Joe realizes Nick has a wife and even if (when) he forgives Nick for leaving like he did, and they sit there and talk for hours and Joe misses his performance and gets fired, loses a bit of his reputation, he's not going to get what he loathsomely wants.

"I wanted to tell you," Nick says thickly. "But you wouldn't have let me go, or you would've given up your chances or - I wanted to leave a note just for you, too. Dad always makes everything about him. I don't think that he would have let you have it." Nick's brows furrow tight and he looks pained. "Or I think he would've changed everything I said into something negative. But I loved you, and I didn't want him to, to make it out like it was your fault or something idiotic like he always tried to do."

Joe's fingers flex. Because every point Nick's making is sadly valid, and it makes his heart race. Because Nick loved him, which is absurd because brothers love each other, and Nick's just sensitive, knowledgeable, and realized all of these things. And God, how he must've thought every thing through before he left. Shouldn't Joe have felt it coming? Stronger, more believable than he did? Maybe it _is_ his fault Nick left. Maybe he should have stepped up for his little brother's rights, when all he could think about was the fact his father loved Nick better. But did he?

Then he stops himself, and realizes Nick's peeking up at him, face looking moments away from breaking apart or becoming stone, and Joe doesn't want either. He just wants a hopeful smile on that face, and on his own. There's not much Joe's really good at. He's famous for being good at what he does, but that's about it. Technically, he could handle a million things in his life much better than he does, but he can't think about that right now.

Sliding back his chair, Nick's eyes follow Joe as he stands, and walks until he has his arms around Nick's shoulders and a hand pushing Nick's face comfortingly into his neck. "Love you," Joe tells him, and Nick's arms slingshot around his back and grip him so tight Joe forgets how to breathe for a moment.

"Love you too. 'm so sorry..." Nick tells him plaintively. "I want you to live with me. When you can. When you aren't traveling." It takes Joe by warm surprise, Nick's lips moving against his skin, and muffled, hot, and so much more than Joe thinks he should be able to handle at this point.

"Miley, though... You probably have kids now, and -"

"Oh Joe," Nick says soft, sounding sad to know that Joe'd been thinking like that. He pulls back, hands still gripping, but arms loose enough to look like he's breaking the hug. Joe loosens his grip too, hands sliding to Nick's elbows so that he can pull him back in when he wants. "Miley and I, we only got married to have the financial support. We divorced as soon as we figured out how to make it on our own. I..." He trails off, eyes flashing down between them like he's nervous.

Joe saves him. "Oh. Oh I - God Nick, that's... different. If you need money, you know I could buy -" When Nick looks back up at him, face sort of scandalized, he stops abruptly.

"No. Joe... that's not it at all. I want you. I want my brother back." They never discuss how they have another brother, the both of them, which is what makes Joe think that isn't exactly what Nick's asking for. What makes his skin heat up even warmer, and tightens his grip on Nick's elbows before they slide up to his face so he can pull their foreheads together.

They're in New York right now, City, and Joe's mind races as he looks his little brother straight in the eyes. He could find a permanent spot here. He could be stationary in his work. Nick and he could _live_ together, again, be... Become. Something, anything. "Yeah," he says on a breath, and the only warning he has before lips brush over his quickly is his brother's searching eyes.

Joe performs that night, and before he can offer to get Nick a seat, Nick states that he'll wait back in the dressing room. It becomes a silent agreement that night that Nick doesn't ever need to see Joe performing for anyone else. Through some crazy networking, Joe gets Nick the audition on Broadway he's sort of been wanting since he left the show their dad created.

From there, Nick gets his star role, his notoriety from playing Sweeney Todd, and Joe's there for him when their nights don't run into each other. They're famous brothers, but they're not, because Joe's still not Joe to the rest of the world. They live together as housemates, and one night they end up sharing a bed. They end up sharing a bed for the rest of their lives. And a lot more.


End file.
